


daughter of the rain & snow

by borrowedtime



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, M/M, Morgana centric obvs because I love that woman, eventual Merlin/Arthur probably, may or may be part of a series who knows, may very well be unrequited or one sided Merlin/Arthur because who doesn't love pain & suffering, things will invariably get Gay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-02-09
Packaged: 2018-09-23 02:09:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9636251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/borrowedtime/pseuds/borrowedtime
Summary: ‘her most prized possessions are liquid eyeliner and a pack of cigarettes.’ Merlin high school au, Morgana centric.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title from Landscape (demo) - Florence + the Machine.

She settles somewhere between troublesome and full of regret, in the end. Morgana - Morgan, sometimes, if she feels like it - knows that she ought to know better, but most of the time she can’t bring herself to care. 

She’s a punk by definition, a hooligan. She’s skipping classes more than she is attending them - not that she really needs to attend them, she tells herself. She’s snarky and downright mean, sometimes. The teachers have noted that she’s only truly cruel to her brother - half brother, she reminds them listlessly - and his friends. 

By her last year in high school, her most prized possessions are liquid eyeliner and a pack of cigarettes. 

She hangs out on the bleachers, smokes underneath them, and tries her hardest to look like she doesn’t give a damn. 

Everyone knows who her father is, by now, so they don’t usually dare bother the resident school burnout. Worse, everyone knows who she is - and of what she is capable - so they tend to part like a sea when she walks through the hallway. She could rule the school, some people whisper in the corridors, if she thought it was worth the effort. 

Her change was most noted by those around her when she shaved off the sides of her hair, leaving long hair on the top that she’d often pull into a ponytail. Her uncle - her father, she reminds herself bitterly - always did seem to have a fondness for the curls in her dark hair, how long and how flowing it was. He said she looked beautiful, he said she looked like her mother. So, naturally, she shaved it off. 

Classes are a bore, she was the top of them once upon a time; well, most of them, Merlin barely beat her in science two years ago. Now, she can’t see the point. Not after the incident. 

It was cold, the second day back, when Morgana sits down on the bleachers and pulls her tattered bomber jacket around her. Two years ago, she’d managed to convince Uther to buy her an impractical, expensive car; back when he was in the business of buying her affection. So, she’d drive to school, get there early every morning, sit on the bleachers. She’d watch the students trickle in and let smoke billow around her. 

Half way through her third cigarette, she hears familiar footsteps approach her from the left. Steadily, she looks ahead. 

‘What do you want?’ 

Arthur sighs. She imagines he’d have his hands in his pockets, in that casual defeated way he always did when he was upset. That is, she’d find out, if she bothered to look at him.

‘I wanted to ask if I could walk you to English.’ 

She raises her eyebrows and, finally, spares him a glance. It’s cool, full of malice. 

‘Do you really want me to pretend like we’re in the same English class?’

Arthur shifts, tired but somehow still hopeful. ‘I meant that I’d get Gwen and she could walk with you.’

At the mention of her once best friend, Morgana stiffens. She goes back to staring resolutely ahead. Arthur looks ahead with her, brand new Nikes crunching over the gravel. 

‘What happened to you, Morgana?’ 

Morgana stills, then drops her cigarette below her. She snuffs it out with a foot, and then runs a hand over one of the shaven parts of her head. She brushes herself off and walks past her brother, content to leave him in a cloud of cigarette ash; alone.  
–

When she’s not being interrupted on the bleachers by people she’d rather pretend she doesn’t know, Morgana sometimes hangs out in the unoccupied science rooms. 

The smell - clean, chemical and somehow still odourless - is a comfort to her; a reminder of the older days, when she’d partner with Merlin and they’d measure out elements, precise, mix them together and write down the results. 

She sits on one of the chairs near the workbenches, legs drawn up to her chest, arms resting on her knees. Some of her fingers have ash stains on them, she tries to rub them clean to pass the time. The black band on her left wrist moves with her movements, and she runs a finger over the material.

The door to Room 3B opens so suddenly that Morgana scarcely has time to keep herself from jumping in surprise, before someone walks into the room. She doesn’t even bother trying to prepare an excuse like she would’ve a year ago. She’s a Pendragon, she can do whatever she likes. 

‘Oh.’ 

Morgana looks up, and her face falls into a familiar sneer. Merlin walks into the room and looks over the benches. 

‘I thought I left one of my books in here from yesterday.’ 

Morgana wonders why he thinks that she cares about his missing books, but is content to say nothing at all. Merlin rifles through a drawer and pulls out a ratty notebook. 

‘Got it.’ He says, triumphant, filling the silence. 

Morgana rolls her eyes and settles herself by playing with her black band. Merlin moves away, and then hesitates in the doorway. HIs face is full of regret, it’s so strong that the dark haired woman can’t bear to look at it.

He twists his notebook in his hands. ‘We miss having you around, Morgana.’ 

Morgana jolts up, looking at the doorway, armed with several poisoned words and a glare full of hatred. Just as she goes to speak, however, she realises that Merlin is gone. 

Morgana feels loneliness seep into her like the cold from a winter’s night, and she considers smoking to get rid of it. She can’t though, she’s well aware that if she so much as lights up that the smoke detectors and sprinklers will be at the ready. So, she picks at her black nail polish she’d put on somewhere between the hours of 3 and 4 a.m. this morning and continues the seconds that tick along with the clock on the far wall. 

Sometimes, even she can’t believe that two years ago she was on the fast track to an Ivy League education; to being the best of whatever profession she decided that she wanted to be. She can’t believe that two years ago she was once the brightest and happiest of their group, throwing pretend insults Arthur instead of real ones, laughing with Gwen and helping her study History. She can’t believe two years ago she didn’t know she had a brother.

**Author's Note:**

> is also on tumblr under: morgana-pendragonss. 
> 
> No real idea what this is, but magic is an allegory for the Gay.


End file.
